Vahagn Hovnanyan: Oligarchs have full control of Armenian economy

The Armenian economy is fully controlled by oligarchs and will die eventually if nothing is changed, Armenian businessman Vahagn Hovnanyan told azatutyun.am.

He said that all the money in Armenia is in the hands of oligarchs. "Our people have lost all of their hopes. It's time for them to wake up and to try to revive them," Hovnanyan said.

He said that the market of drugs is fully monopolized. "We must get rid of monopolies. The driver of economy is competition. But here we have no competition. We have no production, nor any product that could be exported and could give us profit. We keep buying imported products and letting our dram out of the country.

And all this is done by a small group of people. As a result, we have a very bad reputation in the Diaspora. It is so bad that nobody wants to come and invest money here any more. All this is pushing people to emigrate. They see no progress here. They want to be proud of their children, they want to see them well-educated and healthy. So, I don't blame those who are trying to find jobs abroad," Hovhanyan said.